Mexican church leaders say Pope doesn't support any political candidate

So said the archbishop of Puebla, and an auxiliary bishop of the same city, in brief remarks to reporters at the Vatican today. Last week the Holy See announced that Pope Benedict XVI will travel to Cuba and Mexico in the first quarter of 2012, most likely in the last week of March. Mexico's presidential election will be held 90 days later, on July 1. The bishops emphasized that the timing of the papal visit was purely coincidental, and had nothing to do with next year's elections.

Roman Catholic Church leaders in this country have been accused before of meddling with domestic politics, including in a controversial Wikileaks report last summer which suggested that in 2006, the then archbishop of Guadalajara -- a cardinal of the church -- tried to enlist U.S. support to defeat leftist Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador. http://mexicogulfreporter-supplement.blogspot.com/2011/11/mexican-archbishop-to-us-stop-leftist.html. That archbishop recently announced his retirement. http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/12/mexican-cardinal-resigns-served-as.html .

"The Holy Father is not going (to Mexico) to support any party, nor any candidate, nor to proselytize in any manner," said the bishops. "If anybody tries to use anything he says on the trip (to suggest otherwise), it would be very out of place."

Mexico's PAN president Felipe Calderón is an active, practicing Catholic. PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto was married in the Catholic Church last year. It was Peña Nieto's second marriage (his first wife died in 2007). There have been claims that López Obrador is an evangelical Christian, or other denomination, but he has denied the reports and maintains he is Catholic. Mexico, at least nominally, remains over 80% Roman Catholic.